


Of Subways and Worrying

by NightValeian



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Spoilers up to Episode 29
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 17:06:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightValeian/pseuds/NightValeian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"Please, Cecil. All I'm asking is that you don't get on the Subway. It's dangerous."</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Whatever lurks in the mysterious subway tunnels is taking its toll on Night Vale's citizens, but Carlos is more focused on Cecil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Subways and Worrying

**Author's Note:**

> Notice: If you have not listened up to Episode 29: Subway, you may be a little confused. Maybe.

_"Please, Cecil. All I’m asking is that you don’t get on the Subway. It’s dangerous."_

Carlos didn’t know why he thought that there was a possibility of Cecil actually listening to him. Of all the times Cecil chose not to listen to him, he had to choose today, the day that mysterious subway entrances began manifesting in random parts of Night Vale. It was, well, strange.

To be fair, everything about Night Vale was strange. But when the City Council announced that they hadn’t known anything regarding the subway or where it had come from, it was practically a red flag.

It only became more of a problem when citizens were going on the subway and not coming back. Or when they did, as his research concluded, their DNA was completely drained as if when they rode on the Subway something decided to feed off of them.

He told Cecil that he was leaving to go back to the lab, so he could try to find a way to help the people who had been affected, but also pleaded with him to not go on the subway.

_"People are going on those trains and coming off completely changed. I just don’t want you to get hurt."_

Carlos sat in his lab, looking at DNA samples of the subway riders with the radio on high, listening to Cecil’s smooth voice announce updates from the City Council, the Deer Masked individuals, and the advertising cockroaches. Despite these updates, people continued to walk down the steps of the subway entrance and never return.

It wasn’t until Cecil announced, during the massive earthquake that rocked the entirety of Night Vale, that he was going to give the subway a try that Carlos dropped everything and focused only on the radio, hoping, praying, that Cecil would come back off of that train unharmed.

_"…I saw it all at once, and I could not make any sense of it, but I understood it fully, and it took years, Night Vale, years."_

Hearing Cecil’s voice once again prompted Carlos to leave the lab, get into his truck, and drive straight to the radio station. Cecil said he had been gone for years, but it had only been several minutes. If it had been years to him, what had happened? Had he gotten hurt? Did whatever it was that was lurking in the depths of the subway station drain Cecil as it had done the others?

When Cecil exited the station after the subway was declared closed and bid his listeners good night, Carlos was on him in an instant, cupping cool, pale cheeks in his hands and looking over his face anxiously. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

It pained him, the way that Cecil stared at him, eyes wide and wondering, but there was something else there too; disbelief, maybe? “Carlos…” The strong voice that he had listened to for so long on the radio, now sounded tired, drained even. “You’re still here.”

Carlos could have laughed, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it over the lump in his throat or the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. “Of course I’m still here. Where else would I be?” He released Cecil’s face, circling around him instead, checking for injury, anything at all, but like he suspected, found nothing. Cecil might have been a bit paler than normal, even a bit skinnier as well, but that was all. His hands trembled as he ran them through his hair, stopping in front of the radio host once again, ready to scold him for how worried he’d been. “Cecil, I told you not to go on the subway. I asked you to do one thing and you had to go and do it anyway! You could have been hurt! What if you hadn’t even come back? What if you were like all of those other people who didn-“

Carlos’s scolding was cut short, however, when Cecil’s arms suddenly wrapped around his middle and his face pressed into his neck. “Cecil, I’m honestly trying to scold you and you’re-“

"I’m sorry."

Carlos would have lost the words if he hadn’t felt Cecil’s lips move against his neck indicating that he’d spoken at all. His voice was a whisper, but his grip was tight, and all Carlos could do was sigh and wrap his arms around him in return, face pressed into the top of his head, all anger draining out of him.

"I was gone for so long. I thought you wouldn’t be here when I got back."

Carlos pressed a kiss to the mess of hair and tightened his arms around him, not having the heart to remind Cecil that he had only been gone for four minutes in the real world or that he’d really gone through some type of wormhole that warped his reality. “I’m right here. You’re back and I’m here.”

Carlos wanted to ask Cecil what he had seen, to write it all down and do some more research on what exactly they had going on underneath the town, but instead, he chose the option of leading Cecil back to his truck so he could take him home.

If Cecil’s hand hurt from how tightly Carlos was holding onto it, he didn’t mention it and Carlos didn’t either.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first contribution to the Night Vale community.
> 
> I hope that you enjoyed!
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Like what you read? Wanna say hi?   
> Come visit me at [My Tumblr](http://thequeenofhighgarden.tumblr.com)


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